


Like a Speck of Dust in the Universe

by Jumiku



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Gen, daemon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-01-16 10:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21269486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jumiku/pseuds/Jumiku
Summary: A collection of one-shots depicting the Stargate-universe as a daemon-AU.





	1. Adam

“Where is he transferring from?“

As she entered the room, Captain Samantha Carter couldn’t help but smirk and she could feel the amusement echo through her bond with Adam. Leave it to George Hammond to lead her new commanding officer astray in this fashion. His daemon a turkey vulture ruffled her feathers in a gesture she had known since her childhood meant they were laughing at her. “**She**“, she said with a light emphasis, “is transferring from the Pentagon.“

She looked whom she assumed to be her new commanding officer straight in the eye, as his jaw dropped and his wide eyes took her in. “I take it you are Colonel O’Neil“, she stated matter-of-factly. “Captain Samantha Carter reporting, sir.“ He responded to her salute quite automatically, but his stare looked miles away. Time enough for her to shortly take in his American Foxhound-daemon. The dog looked like she had been through the wringer, missing one ear and a leg and scars covering her from her nose to the tip of her slightly crooked tail.

Sam’s eyes quickly flicked away, when the dog turned to look at her. She was clearly scanning for her daemon and coming up empty so far. This shouldn’t surprise anyone in a soldier, of course. They all went through endless exercises extending their bonds, but it was also fairly obvious from their looks, that they didn’t really think she made a proper soldier.

“But of course you go by ‘**Sam’**,“ a man sitting at the table threw in sneering. The roadrunner on his shoulder cocked her head this way and that, judging her reaction.

She knew this game and simply continued to smile pleasantly. “You don’t have to worry, Major. We played with dolls, when we were little,“ she replied; ‘we’ included her tardy daemon, who had always enjoyed having hands.

„GI-Joe?“ came the quick reply.

„Oh no”, she said. “Major Matt Mason“

The man made a theatrically astonished face, while the guy next to him smirked. The German Sheppard at his side had her ears pricked in interest. „Major Matt Mason – astronaut-doll“, he explained to the other, earning himself brownie-points from her for his childlike interest in the action-figure. If the general hadn’t lost his patience with them at that moment, she may have offered to show him her collector's items, she still had in her attic somewhere.

Apparently, the both of them were not quite ready to quit needling her though and she could feel her nerves beginning to give, as they actually tried to scare her. Adam, of course, thought this was hilarious, but Sam was close to snapping. She had not waited so long to go through this gate only for chauvinism to get in her way now.

“So have you ever seen a child laugh and smile at you, even though they have no daemon, no soul?” She knew it was a trick question meant to make her look like a fool or asshole and it would have been wise to simply deny every aspect of, but the way he phrased the question rankled her more than the obvious bait: as though it was a simple, easy question of soul or no soul.

“A lack of daemon on Abydos in combination with their described general mental health actually suggests that a lack of daemon is not harmful or unhealthy for humans, when induced by a lack of Dust-molecules to coalesce at birth, so there is no reason to assume-.”

She knew she had made a mistake, when their faces turned stony. She reviewed what she had said and could feel Adam groaning. In combination with his lack of appearance, they must have lumped her together with the incision-nutter-scientists of old! “Oh here we go! Another scientist, general? Please!” her commanding officer complained.

“Theoretical astrophysicist”, a voice from the doorway corrected a little sharply as Adam strolled in. Unless it was absolutely unavoidable, he was dreadfully slow, so she had left him behind at the elevator. That and to give him an entrance. He never failed to shut military men who disliked women on the force up. You could have heard a pin fall, as everyone took in Adam’s appearance and for a split-second Sam wished they weren’t at work, because then she could have laughed and lifted some of that tension; mostly her own.

When people heard ‘scientist’, they knew what daemon to expect: Any kind of primate. Anything else was uncommon. Sam supposed it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it usually held true. However, what they really expected were bright-eyed, little monkeys with long, frail limbs, quick on their feet and hanging from their person’s neck. If Adam tried that, he’d likely break like a twig. Anything he touched, he had to handle with the utmost care, so he didn’t break it.

With his massive shoulders he had trouble fitting trough normal doors. With every step he took his strong muscles rolled beneath his silvery coat. His expression looked a little grumpy, but he attempted to smile politely, as he took his customary place behind her. While everyone stared at the massive, 300 pound-silverback gorilla, only the major with the roadrunner-daemon seemed to find the words to break the ice. “So… How good is **he** with a gun?”

Sam heard the slightest flutter of feathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon/Sort of interesting stuff:  
People born off-world don’t have daemon, as there’s no dust on any other planet.  
Due to the limitations of taking your vulnerable daemon anywhere, who is little more than an easy target in combat, part of modern military training entails stretching your bond slowly to an acceptable distance among other things.  
Even if they are able to, I dare say daemon won’t be allowed to hold guns.  
Daemon seem to either show kids early in what direction their career may go or it may simply shape their aspirations, because you and others expect them. For example in the books servants have dogs and scientists monkeys. I can see this continuing well into modern-day America, as it goes along with our own inclination to judge the characters by their daemon-species.  
I try to find names, I think might fit, what the parents and thereby their daemon might have liked, but if I couldn’t think of anything the daemon gets named after the actor.  
Daemon list:  
Hammond: a turkey vulture with some rather obvious ‘tells’ if you know where to look, she can be harsh, if she needs to  
Jack: Griselda or “bitch”, because that’s her default character, an American Foxhound that is covered in scars, almost blind on one eye, has only three legs and a slightly crooked tail that hurts, when she wags it  
Kawalsky: a very perceptive roadrunner  
Sam: a silver-back gorilla for whom she has been trying for years to get a service-gun and failed, pretty easy for people to read, which is part of why he tries to fall back in conversations, he may try to act tough, but is a huge softie and very careful of his strength


	2. Nebetnehat

Teal’c walked down one of the many halls of the SGC and he could, as per usual, tell exactly which of the airmen were new to the force.

It wasn’t like he knew each soldier personally. Not at all.

He could tell by the gaping and furtive glances. While soldiers were used to seeing people without daemon by their sides – Daniel had explained to him, that he and Nebetnehat found even a tiny fraction of the distance Adam and Griselda tended to walk off on their own, supremely uncomfortable – the first thing new-comers seemed to learn was that off-worlders didn’t have daemons at all. And on-world there was only one such off-worlder to stare at.

So he had to deal with green soldiers gawking at him and trying to find out if their resident jaffa had a soul and if by extension the rest of the universe did.

Teal’c wondered what they would say if he told them jaffa legends claimed they had moved beyond the need of a daemon, because they had the symbiotes to complete them and humans only gained a soul at all through the bonding with a goa’uld. It was all false anyway. Humans should know this as well. They published endless books on the topic and their resident MajorCarter had published her master’s thesis on dust in the vacuum of space. He hadn’t understood that one, but enough of the school books to know that just as the goa’uld were gods, there was a reason to assume a daemon was necessary for anyone to have a soul.

“Hi Teal’c!” DanielJackson greeted him, as he walked past. Tiny Nebetnehat clung tightly to his shoulder and peered shyly out of her bright, round eyes at him. As she noticed his attention, she flitted into a pocket in his shirt. “Ah. Sorry. Nebet says ‘hi’, too. She just isn’t used to not having to watch out for grabby hands anymore,” he said shuddering and sticking one finger in the pocket to coax her back out.

“Greetings DanielJackson and Nebetnehat”, Teal’c said and silently thought there was little wonder why Abydonian children would want to pet the tiny creature. She could have easily fit into the palm of one of his hands and her pure white fur looked silky. Her pink face stared back at him slightly fearfully. “I would never break your taboos.”

He meant it too. He had grown up with legends of the Tau’ri homeworld and their bonds to animals. The reality of it was quite different from the legends, though. In the legends the creatures had been quite ferocious, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

If Teal’c was honest with himself, each time he looked at his friends’ daemons, even big, strong Adam, he couldn’t help but worry. In contrast to the legends the daemons usually weren’t much of an asset in combat, but rather vital organs exposed to the outside.

A blast could likely take out Griselda and Adam and would definitely kill frail, little Nebetnehat, taking their human counterpart with them. He could vividly remember the look on O’Neil’s face, when he had grabbed his dog by the scruff of her neck. It was then he had realized what he was truly dealing with and that he had to help them.

He had seen it a few times now. Daemon dissolve into a beautiful, yet horrifying shower of gold, that even the legends hadn’t come close to and the tau’ri would lay there still and alone like they never had been in life.

Major Carter had once shown him that she carried around a likeness of her daemon along with her dog-tags, but hadn’t elaborated on it further.

It was likely a superstition and hope to remain together even after death. He tried to withhold judgment, as he was aware, that he’d never be able to truly understand.

“So… We were just on our way to grab some lunch. Do you want to come along?” DanielJackson asked sounding distinctly uncomfortable.

Teal’c inclined his head. “I would like that very much.” He smiled very, very slightly, as DanielJackson’s little monkey cocked her head at him.

____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon:  
People born off-world don’t have daemon, as there’s no dust.  
Due to the limitations of taking your vulnerable daemon anywhere, who is nothing but a big target in combat, part of military training entails stretching your bond slowing to an acceptable distance.  
Even if they are able to, I dare say daemon won’t be allowed to hold guns.  
Daemon seem to either show kids early in what direction their career may go or it may simply shape their aspirations, because you and others expect them. For example in the books servants have dogs and scientists monkeys. I can see this continuing well into modern-day America, as it goes along with our own inclination to judge the characters by their daemon-species.  
I try to find names, the parents and thereby their daemon might have liked, but if I couldn’t think of anything the daemon will get named after the actor.  
Daemon list:  
Hammond: a turkey vulture with some rather obvious ‘tells’ if you know where to look  
Jack: Griselda (for his Scottish roots and the meaning ‘dark battle’) or “bitch”, because that’s her default character, an American Foxhound that is covered in scars, almost blind on one eye, has only three legs and a crooked tail that hurts, when she wags it  
Kawalsky: a very perceptive roadrunner  
Sam: Adam (because the actress head-canons her as catholic and that usually comes from the parents…) a silver-back gorilla for whom Sam has been trying for years to get a special service-gun and failed, pretty easy for people to read, which is part of why he tries to fall back during conversations, he may try to act tough, but is a huge softie and very careful of his strength  
Daniel: an albino pygmy marmoset called Nebetnehat (a queen of an unknown pharaoh, I considered naming her Hator, but that would have been too mean), as I wanted for him a more typical monkey, but thought with all his specialness in the show he would get an albino and with all the whump he gets, why not something any person would want to pet and cuddle to make his life even harder?  
Teal’c: none


	3. Daxter

Cassandra watched as the other kids ran past her not even acknowledging her. Daxter was sitting on the ground next to her, sniffing around. As she watched, their daemons flitted from one shape to the next and she could only stare in amazement, as everyone else acted as though this was completely normal.

It wasn’t.

The first time she had seen it, she had screamed and her new mom Janet and her otter-daemon had held her and led her away from the stunned children and their daemon and their parents and their daemon. It was in that moment, while her mom explained the changing of forms and how that ceased, when you got older, that Cassandra accepted that things had not gone back to the way before. She wasn’t back to being part of a group and community, not completely. She had grabbed her new mom and held onto her for dear life, but stared at Teryl, her daemon, who was just shy of touching her. He seemed to feel just as superfluous in this situation.

Everyone had a daemon and she didn’t. Daxter was a substitute and a poor one at that. She couldn’t feel his emotion or talk to him. He hardly listened to her and he peed everywhere. He didn’t suddenly change into a mouse or tiger, when she was frightened or angry. And the worst part was that everyone could somehow immediately tell, even when he was sitting there right next to her obediently. When she had first come to school everyone had looked at her weirdly.

Apparently, her mom had explained the situation to the teacher, who in turn explained it to the kids. She was ‘special’.

She really didn’t want to be special. She wanted this. She wanted what the other kids in the park had. She wanted to run around and have her daemon wrestle with the other kid’s daemons. She wanted Gris to chase around with her daemon and look happy for once. She wanted gentle Adam to pick her daemon up in his hands and place him on his back, as she had once seen him do with Nebet. The poor monkey had finally come down from Daniel’s shoulder, when Jack almost accidentally stepped on her. She wanted Teryl to clean her daemon and curl up around him to make them both feel

Daxter meanwhile didn’t even notice the form-flitting animals or even the calmer ones waiting at the edge of the playground. He seemed to want to play with the children though, grinning his silly doggy-grin and making whining noises, that she had never heard a daemon make.

Suddenly, there was a slightly older girl with a bright parrot-daemon almost in her face. “Hey, you’ve got a dog? That’s so cool!”

Cassandra blinked and nodded dumbly, as the girl chattered on. The parrot-daemon on her shoulder looked at and around her curiously, before becoming a tiny mouse on the girls shoulder and flitting into her hoodie, when Cassandra didn’t respond further and the situation got slightly awkward.

As her young mind formed a plan, Cassandra smiled shyly and asked very softly, “Ehm… I was going to play fetch with him. Do you want to play with us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon:
> 
> People born off-world don’t have daemon, as there’s no dust.
> 
> Due to the limitations of taking your vulnerable daemon anywhere, who is nothing but a big target in combat, part of military training entails stretching your bond slowing to an acceptable distance.  
Even if they are able to, I dare say daemon won’t be allowed to hold guns.
> 
> Daemon seem to either show kids early in what direction their career may go or it may simply shape their aspirations, because you and others expect them. For example in the books servants have dogs and scientists monkeys. I can see this continuing well into modern-day America, as it goes along with our own inclination to judge the characters by their daemon-species.
> 
> I try to find names, the parents and thereby their daemon might have liked, but if I couldn’t think of anything the daemon will get named after the actor.
> 
> Daemon list:
> 
> Hammond: a turkey vulture with some rather obvious ‘tells’ if you know where to look
> 
> Jack: Griselda (for his Scottish roots and the meaning ‘dark battle’) or “bitch”, because that’s her default character, an American Foxhound that is covered in scars, almost blind on one eye, has only three legs and a crooked tail that hurts, when she wags it
> 
> Kawalsky: a very perceptive roadrunner
> 
> Sam: Adam (because the actress head-canons her as catholic and that usually comes from the parents…) a silver-back gorilla for whom Sam has been trying for years to get a special service-gun and failed, pretty easy for people to read, which is part of why he tries to fall back during conversations, he may try to act tough, but is a huge softie and very careful of his strength
> 
> Daniel: an albino pygmy marmoset called Nebetnehat (a queen of an unknown pharaoh, I considered naming her Hator, but that would have been too mean), as I wanted for him a more typical monkey, but thought with all his specialness in the show he would get an albino and with all the whump he gets, why not something any person would want to pet and cuddle to make his life even harder?
> 
> Teal’c: none, once he starts leaving the station on occasion, people will assume he was incised, which in turn makes him feel even more uncomfortable among normal people
> 
> Cassie: none, she got the little dog from Jack as a substitute in this AU, so she wouldn’t feel so left out, but since that obviously doesn’t work, she tries to adopt a very shy personality, so people will assume she has a very tiny and shy daemon hiding somewhere


	4. Donna

When Captain Carter stumbled through the event horizon and she screamed to disengage, everyone in the control-room thought something was up. He couldn’t put his finger on it at the time, but in retrospect it had been how calm Adam was, as she pulled him after her. He was usually a rather collected individual, but certainly not passive.

The soldiers down below reacted much more quickly, taking cues from their daemon and pointing weapons at the captain. His hand trembled slightly as he realized he would have to commend them for their quick thinking, when his own brain caught up with the situation.

“What? What’s going on?”, the creature inside Samantha Carter asked trying to act natural as she raised her hands slowly. In any other situation the realization dawning on her features, as she surveyed the many dog-daemon with their raised hackles and growls, would have been comical. But they had just lost a good woman. It couldn’t be more obvious, if Adam had burst into a shower of golden sparks, instead of just so dreadfully calm and just lumbering along, ignoring that people were threatening his Sam.

Donna settled on his shoulder heavily and whispered, “She isn’t dead.”

It hadn’t been too long ago that the Goa’uld inside Kawalsky had made Jay into little more than a robot and he had ended up dead, when they tried to take out the parasite. People had learned to look at each other’s daemon way more closely ever since and of course, they had trained and posted daemon with superior senses of smell at the Stargate and strategic places around the SGC.

When it realized its mistake, the Goa’uld seemed to weigh its options, before dropping all pretenses. “Let me go! I will return her to you, as soon as I am able to,” it claimed using its real voice instead of Samantha Carter’s.

General George Hammond felt a heavy weight settle on his shoulders that had nothing to do with his daemon, as he ordered the shell-shocked soldier’s to arrest what was left of his best friend’s daughter. Her teammates looked as though they hadn’t yet fully comprehended what was going on. Everyone but Griselda of course. A shudder ran through the general as the Goa’uld pleaded at times angrily and at other times desperately, all the while Adam just followed like a zombie.

He imagined the empty casket his friend would bury, because the NID would want the body. “She is not dead, yet, George,” Donna soothed and after a moment she added slightly hardened. “And if it comes down to it, it is her wishes that are more important. If her death could help in the war, she would want it to, instead of rotting in a grave. If Jacob and Anah knew the facts, so would they.”

It was the sort of rationality he knew from her. Sometimes it made doing, what was necessary, easier. Right now he only remembered the young girl with the giant lumbering ape trotting after her with the both of them giving picture-perfect salutes, when they reached him.

“She’s not dead, yet, Donna,” he said and he felt approval through their bond.

“No, George,” she agreed calmly, “no, she isn’t.”

It was a while later that he watched through the cameras as Jack tried to talk to the goa’uld. Griselda trotted up and down by the bars, as though it was her who had been caged and not her teammates. Occasionally she growled viciously at nothing. Adam didn’t even seem to notice her. He was crouching in a corner of the room doing nothing and staring into space dazedly. They had considered separating him from the goa’uld, but Teal’c of all people had protested strongly, quoting her daemon-tag.

She didn’t want to be separated from her daemon even in death, so she wouldn’t want to be separated now. Nobody had the heart to disagree, so they had let the goa’uld keep the huge gorilla for now.

To be fair, the daemon seemed to be completely useless to goa’uld, so there seemed to be little danger.

“My name is Jolinar of Malkshur. I am one of the tok’ra. You must let me go. There is someone after me and he will raze this place to the ground in order to get to me,” she explained in the dispassionate tone of her people. “If you let me go, it will lead him away from here and I can find a different host. I promise to return her to you!”

“We cannot do that,” Jack replied in a monotone, while Griselda gave a low growl.

“Do not be a fool!” she hissed. “There is literally nothing to lose for you and everything to gain. You do not have the technology to safely extract a symbiote. Even if I allowed it to happen, the chance of success would be minimal at best. If you let me go, I could seek help from my people.”

Suddenly Griselda snapped forward, shouting, “What do you expect us to do? Just let you walk through the stargate and take Carter with you? We only have your word that you haven’t killed her, yet. Look what you did to Adam! Do you really think, we’d believe you? We know nothing of the host survives. Look at fucking Adam!” Jack looked like he’d been smacked. No wonder. Griselda didn’t talk. Not that George knew anyway and Jack and her usually treated each other like they didn’t exist anyway.

For a moment the goa’uld looked indecisive, then she dropped her head and for a split second her eyes glowed. “What?” She blinked, looking around and then flexing her fingers, as though unable to comprehend being able to do so. Then she started pleading with Jack, but what caught George’s eye was Adam blinking and hurrying to the bars as well, getting quite close to Griselda and whispering something to her too softly to be picked up by the microphones over Sam’s desperate pleading. He tried to lay a hand on her hand gently, but she shied away. He looked crushed, as she ran off, followed shortly after by her more sedate but no less shaken human counterpart. A moment later all life left Adam again and George felt his heart turn cold, as the ape settled down by the bars.

“What will it take?” he believed he could read from the goa’uld’s lips putting everything he had seen into question again.

**Headcanon:**

When Goa’uld (or Tok’ra) suppress a tau’ri the daemon becomes suppressed as well. They simply lumber along obediently, but won’t do much else. The Goa’uld can learn to control the daemon as well. It’s more difficult than controlling a host, though.

People born off-world don’t have daemon, as there’s no dust.

Due to the limitations of taking your vulnerable daemon anywhere, who is nothing but a big target in combat, part of military training entails stretching your bond slowly to an acceptable distance.  
Even if they are able to, I dare say daemon won’t be allowed to hold guns. Going through the stargate, the daemon and human must maintain constant contact.

Daemon seem to either show kids early in what direction their career may go or it may simply shape their aspirations, because you and others expect them. For example in the books servants have dogs and scientists monkeys. I can see this continuing well into modern-day America, as it goes along with our own inclination to judge the characters by their daemon-species.

I try to find names, the parents and thereby their daemon might have liked, but if I couldn’t think of anything the daemon will get named after the actor.

**Daemon list:**

Hammond: Donna, a turkey vulture with some rather obvious ‘tells’ if you know where to look. She can be a bit harsher than her counterpart, but she tries to do right by everyone.

Jack: Griselda or “bitch”, because that’s her default character, an American Foxhound that is covered in scars, almost blind on one eye, has only three legs and a crooked tail that hurts, when she wags it. Jack and her don't talk or touch, at least not when anyone's around. 

Kawalsky: a very perceptive roadrunner

Sam: a silver-back gorilla for whom Sam has been trying for years to get a special service-gun and failed, pretty easy for people to read, which is part of why he tries to fall back during conversations, he may try to act tough, but is a huge softie and very careful of his strength

Daniel: an albino pygmy marmoset called Nebetnehat, as I wanted for him a more typical monkey, but thought with all his specialness in the show he would get an albino and with all whump he gets in canon why not something any person would want to pet and cuddle to make his life even harder?

Teal’c: none, once he starts leaving the station people will just assume he was incised

Cassie: none, she got the little dog from Jack as a substitute in this AU, so she wouldn’t feel so left out, but since that obviously doesn’t work, she will later adopt a very shy personality, so people will assume she has a very tiny and shy daemon hiding somewhere

Jacob: an unknown daemon named Anah, because it’s from the bible as well (daemon-family tradition) and means one who answers. You know. Because he always has to answer to his wife/symbiote, Selmak ;).


End file.
